


One Night at the Gym

by catstuff



Category: Crazy Ex-Girlfriend (TV)
Genre: Humiliation, M/M, Rough Oral Sex, Verbal Humiliation, catharsis through kink, dubcon, masculinity issues, pwp but give it emotional baggage
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-10
Updated: 2021-01-10
Packaged: 2021-03-14 00:40:19
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,125
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28662597
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/catstuff/pseuds/catstuff
Summary: Nathaniel thinks he’s alone in the locker room. Greg thinks it’s the perfect time to pick a fight.
Relationships: Nathaniel Plimpton/Greg Serrano
Comments: 2
Kudos: 8





	One Night at the Gym

**Author's Note:**

> i have long felt there is a disturbing lack of m/m smut in this fandom so this is my contribution toward rectifying the issue.

It happened late one night at the gym.

Nathaniel didn't usually swim in the evening, but he had a _very_ early meeting in the morning, so this was the compromise he had worked out with himself—he was learning to do that. Forty-five minutes of laps back and forth across the annoyingly small pool left him with a satisfied buzz in his muscles, not quite an ache, and a blessedly clear head. Slinging a towel around his shoulders, he made for the locker rooms, his flip-flops slapping on the cement floor and echoing in the cavernous space.

Just a quick shower, the drive home, and then he could go to sleep content from a day well spent. Nathaniel sighed in preemptive relief as he stepped under the shower's hot spray, lathering the acidic scent of chlorine off his body. A fully productive day, without getting caught up in the emotional aftermath of you-know-who and her stupid choices, was still a tougher win than it had any right to be, even months after the Bachelorette debacle.

Nathaniel took a quick glance around and allowed himself the luxury of pulling down his swim trunks and tossing them aside. Normally, he was a little too self-conscious (not that he would _ever_ admit it), but hell, the place was still empty, and he deserved it. And his ass deserved to not smell like chlorine. Of course, as soon as he finished soaping off and started to relax, the water started cooling. He bit back a grumble—he would not ruin a good day over such a petty complaint—and turned the shower off, quitting while he was ahead.

He swiped his hair back over his scalp, shook the excess water from his fingertips, and then he turned around. 

Greg Serrano stood in the open space between lockers and showers, wearing long mesh shorts and a sweat-stained t-shirt, his mouth hanging open and a half-empty sport drink hanging from one hand. He looked almost as caught in the headlights as Nathaniel felt, and for a moment the two men froze, gaping at each other, before hurriedly turning around.

***

The last time Nathaniel and Greg had seen each other:

The wine bar on Foothill. The same seats, the same view, the same damn drinks on the bar, as the first time they came here together, when their friendship was new enough to simply be a friendship, naively conspiring its own ruin. They were both thinking it, but neither would be the one to say it, because they felt just as lost, as Greg put it, "this side of Rebeccagate."

It had been two weeks. They were both still firmly ensconced in the bitterness of rejection.

"Still can't believe she chose writing over us," Nathaniel remarked, needlessly.

"Right," Greg joined in. "Like _writing_ is a real thing."

"Like it's mutually exclusive with a relationship. It's a _hobby_."

"Exactly!"

Sullen, they sipped their drinks.

"You know, I bet she's writing about us." There was a paranoid edge to Greg's voice. "Why else wouldn't she want to see us?"

"She did say she still had feelings for me."

Greg looked at him sidelong. "I bet she did."

Nathaniel returned the suspicious look. "What are you saying?"

"I dunno, man. Maybe we're just _not worth it_. Maybe we'll never get our shit together. Maybe we're just not fucking cut out for this."

Nathaniel's eyes hardened. "Maybe just speak for yourself, huh?"

Greg turned away again, stared into his lemonade. Apparently he didn't need alcohol to be a gigantic dick, which only bolstered his point. They finished their drinks in silence and parted ways with barely a terse goodbye.

***

That was months ago, and they hadn't spoken since, beyond the most necessary of courtesies. They could both be civil; they were evolved men. They simply had nothing more to say to each other.

Nathaniel reached for his towel and wrapped it around his waist. It made him feel better—not good, but better—but it was too late to rewind. He was a fool to let his guard down like that. Of course he wouldn't be the only one using the gym late. And of course, it would have to be Serrano.

Greg wasn't thrilled to see him either, but he especially hadn't been prepared to _see_ him, and he was still turned fiercely away when Nathaniel grunted, "I'm decent now."

"Oh." Greg turned slowly, pausing to set his drink down on a bench. He made a point of looking Nathaniel in the eyes—and only in the eyes. Moments passed.

"Well? Are you gonna move, so I can get through? Or did you want something?"

Greg winced at the bite in Nathaniel's voice. He hadn't realized he was blocking the way, and stepped aside quickly. "Nope, nothing. Don't want anything from you."

"Why? Because I'm _not worth it_?" Nathaniel didn't mean for the words to slip out, but he figured once they had, he may as well stand behind him, so he squared his shoulders and stood his ground on the wet tile.

"I never meant to say that." Greg looked ashamed, but it quickly transmuted to anger. "You _know_ I never meant to say that."

"Yeah, well." Nathaniel shifted his weight. "Maybe you know you should have said you were sorry."

"What?"

Nathaniel scoffed, shook his head, and made for the lockers, but Greg stopped him with a hand on his chest.

"I'm sorry," Greg enunciated. "Look, obviously you're not worthless. You've got your shit together _so_ much more than me. I mean, I almost relapsed, and you're still killing it at the douchebag lawyer game, plus you _clearly_ keep a better gym schedule than me..." Trailing off, he realized his hand was still on Nathaniel's chest, and promptly removed it.

"I don't have my shit together." Nathaniel spoke sharply, but softly, forcing Greg to inch closer in order to hear. "I am barely making it through every day. Last week I full on yelled at a cafeteria worker because they ran out of kale. Do you know how humiliating it was go back and apologize to that poor woman?"

"At least you're learning to apologize." Greg raised an eyebrow, dryly sarcastic.

Nathaniel huffed, but turned down the dial from a rolling boil to a simmer. "Yeah, it's great. Now, if I could stop running out of meetings to almost-cry in my office..."

"Yeah, wait til you stop running out. The guys at AA, they encourage that emotional sharing crap. I'm lucky if I make it through a meeting _without_ weeping like a disillusioned child."

"Sounds disgusting."

"It's absolutely abhorrent. My masculinity's a shambles." Greg felt his cheeks redden as his tongue got ahead of his brain. Open vulnerability: the thing that he hated; the thing that he'd learned the hard way was necessary to human happiness, begrudgingly including his own; the thing he'd done everything in his power to avoid since Rebecca dumped him despite his best efforts. There was simple oversharing, and there was this: the emotional equivalent of public streaking.

Greg abruptly broke eye contact, and found himself staring down Nathaniel's bare chest to the white gym towel tucked none-too-carefully around his waist. Speaking of nudity. The irony of his thought clobbered him over the head, and the double irony that he, the irony guy, had failed to connect his internal monologue with the actual...

Nathaniel's voice snapped him back to reality. "See something you like, Serrano?"

"Yeah, right," Greg retorted, childishly, automatically, unconvincingly. "Your pecs are a joke. You probably can't bench-press shit."

"Can't—you wanna see how much I bench, loser?" Nathaniel shoved Greg with one hand, more an insult than an attack. He expected Greg to sneer, step aside, and let Nathaniel go home already.

Greg shoved back. 

Nathaniel felt his last shred of patience swiftly evaporate. _He'd show this asshole how much he could bench_ —and then he found himself panting hard with adrenaline, both hands wrapped around Greg's biceps, holding him against a wall, and realized just as quickly that he'd shoved him into it.

"The fuck is your problem?" Greg asked, aggressively casual.

"My _problem_ is I'm being cornered in the shower by a _little bitch—_ " It took Nathaniel another couple seconds to work out that his words had been cut off by Greg's mouth against his. Greg's hands scrambled against Nathaniel's bare chest, looking for a shirt to grab on to and finding only slippery pecs, and it turned out that Nathaniel's subtle abs, on closer inspection, were annoyingly well-formed.

Suddenly, Nathaniel released Greg's shoulders as if they burned him, throwing himself back in the small space between showers and lockers. 

Greg's eyes flashed malice. "You think you're _so_ much better than me because you can keep a suit pressed and follow a ridiculously effective workout routine?"

Nathaniel's flashed blunt confusion. "What?"

"You heard me, you corporate bastard."

Greg was wound so tightly Nathaniel could see his hands shaking as he balled them into fists, daring Nathaniel to throw the first punch. Nathaniel took in his posture, suddenly processed that Greg's initial scrabbling on his bare chest had turned to something much more curious, suddenly processed that he may have been kissing Greg back. All these insults, though... and then it clicked.

"Greg," Nathaniel asked, all anger gone, replaced with a genuine bon-ami concern. "Do you _want_ me to insult you? Are you trying to get me to hook up with you while—while insulting each other?"

Greg's voice went low and husky as he stepped toward Nathaniel again. "What kind of sick fuck would do something like that?"

Nathaniel hesitated for a fraction of a second, and then he was yanking Greg toward him by the front of his t-shirt, as Greg had tried to do to him, their mouths crashing together for the second time. The sound from Greg's throat was at once shocked, wanting, disgusted—with Nathaniel or with himself?

"The same kind, of sick fuck, who would ambush, another man, in a public shower." Nathaniel gasped the words into Greg's mouth between kisses, though _kiss_ was hardly the right word, Nathaniel pushing his tongue against and past Greg's, invading his mouth thoroughly and deeply, _because he could._ Greg's keening moan, a reaction unwillingly dragged from his throat, told Nathaniel he was on the right track, even as Greg struggled for purchase against him.

"I'd hardly call that an ambush," Greg panted. His hands were spread wide over Nathaniel's chest, clearly feeling him up, but undecided in whether he was also trying to shove Nathaniel off himself at the same time. Greg's face flushed in a way that Nathaniel's gut told him meant arousal, likely an erection. Hopefully an erection? "This, on the other hand."

Nathaniel flew off Greg so quickly his back hit the wall, and he winced as he raised his hands in a defensive, prohibitive gesture. "Dude, if you're going to call this assault in any form, I'm not going to go through with it."

Greg's mouth twisted with discontent; he seemed to be chewing on that and not liking the taste. "Yeah, that's fair," he mumbled under his breath.

"Is this some sort of, like, internalized homophobia thing?" Nathaniel said the words like he had read them online, but never needed to deploy them out loud prior to this moment.

"Oh, come on, even I'm not _that_ much of a dick. You're not the only one who used to play team sports in school, you know." There was a suggestive tone to the way Greg said _team sports_.

"I thought you hated sports."

"I do. Especially team sports." Greg inched closed to Nathaniel again, as the meaning of his words slowly sunk in. He was only inches away when he added, "That shit's embarrassing at _best_."

Greg's lean and leer was so obviously a dare that it was tacky, but Nathaniel took the bait straightaway. "You don't seem that averse," he said, straightening his spine and pressing into disputed territory in a way that he swore made Greg's pulse briefly visible in his neck, "to embarrassing situations."

Clinging to dignity now by only his fingernails, Greg laughed, a brief and ugly sound, ashamed and possessed. "Yeah, I have a real problem with execution."

Nathaniel raised a hand, not even sure yet of his intention for it, and Greg was breathing heavily, wincing hard without flinching away, as if staying close enough to smell each other's breath was a game of chicken and his life depended on it. 

Maybe it did—that sounded like Greg. 

Looking slightly down at him now, Nathaniel felt as if his entire awareness was on stereo and each speaker was playing a very different station. Greg's whole tightly wound thing, that endless tension in every muscle of his face and body that ratcheted tighter and tighter and tighter, never quite snapping all the way until someone tried to help—Nathaniel got it. He really did.

At the same time, he found himself with a sudden and astonishing intolerance for it. _You want to see something fucking_ snap, _Serrano?_ Nathaniel shoved Greg back with an arm barred horizontally across his chest, pushed him into the wall, kept pressing with his forearm as Greg took ragged, shallow breaths. Nathaniel checked himself, but Greg wasn't suffocating, just pissed off and uncomfortable. 

"What the fuck do you even want out of this?"

Greg answered, as if it were at all profound or original, "Catharsis."

Nathaniel made sure to let it show how deeply unimpressed he was. "You're a piece of shit."

"I know," Greg said, like Han Solo.

Which pissed Nathaniel off exactly the right amount for him to growl and close the gap between their faces, kissing Greg hard and rough, their end-of-day stubble grinding together. Greg groaned and shuddered as the last of his token resistance slipped away, eyes rolling up under fluttering lids. Nathaniel thought, _Interesting,_ and dragged his tongue up the line of Greg's jaw. An experimental graze of Nathaniel's teeth over the skin beneath Greg's ear earned him a whimper; a rough bite to the same spot earned him a strangled, self-conscious moan. 

Nathaniel's hand slid up Greg's chest, over the t-shirt still clinging damply to his lean pecs, and when he pulled up for air, the sight before him knocked it right back out of his lungs. His hand curled loosely at the base of Greg's throat, palm covering the space between his collarbones, thumb brushing the hurried thrum of his pulse. Greg's eyes were half-lidded, pupils dilated, intense with desire but unfocused, and his lips were parted as if about to speak but not quite finding the words. His face was flushed, and his breath quickened when Nathaniel closed his fingers, just a little, around his neck.

"Take off your shirt," Nathaniel growled. Greg complied sluggishly, his elbow sticking in the damp fabric, and it fell limply to the hard concrete floor. Nathaniel wasted no time grasping Greg by the biceps, finally allowing himself to relish the fantasy of total control, keeping a tight hold as his hands examined Greg's musculature in greater detail. His effort at the gym had started to show, but there was still more muscle beneath the flesh than showed through: Nathaniel ran heavy fingers over burgeoning lats and abdominals, tense pectorals, begrudgingly impressive triceps.

When Greg started to squirm in his grip at the intense touch, Nathaniel surprised them both with a sharp laugh, and shoved Greg back, releasing him with a casual flippancy that brought back some old feelings of intoxicating power—he relished them, without letting them take the reins. Greg bounced against the wall, swearing, and Nathaniel stepped forward, chin held high. He took Greg once more by the throat, loosely enough for Greg to gulp unimpeded, snugly enough to feel the bob of his adam's apple between taut cords of muscle.

"Do you still want this?" Nathaniel's voice was cool, dispassionate. His hand crept upward, and the tips of his fingers clenched the lower edge of Greg's jaw on either side. 

Greg's clouded eyes had cleared, and he looked uncomfortably lucid as the muscles in his neck strained against Nathaniel's strong fingers. Again, his lips pursed as if to speak, the words waiting to tip out of his mouth like water from a pitcher, but nothing came out.

"Do you want this?" Nathaniel repeated more firmly. "Answer me, Serrano, or I'll drop you on the floor and leave right now." He didn't know if he was prepared to follow through on that threat, but it didn't matter; the words lit a real fire under Greg's ass, as he'd hoped they would.

"Take me." Greg gulped, willing his eyes to focus, collecting himself. He really didn't want Nathaniel to walk away, not now—they were well past the point of no return here, so if Nathaniel wanted clarity, fine, he could fucking have it. "Use me. Treat me like fucking dirt." 

It was enough for Nathaniel: his hand began to tighten; Greg's eyes fluttered shut with a strained exhale; both their pulses quickened. Nathaniel's voice was a low growl, inches from Greg's ear. "Get on your knees."

Greg didn't hesitate, just dropped to his knees on the concrete, cold and rough against his bare knees. He tipped his head back, craning his neck to gaze up the full length of Nathaniel's body. Nathaniel's eyes were still steel against his, reducing him: an order given without a word said, humiliating in its casual presumption. Greg gave a tug and the damp towel around Nathaniel's waist fell, revealing a substantial erection bobbing in front of two chiseled thighs and framed by perfect iliopsoai. For a moment, he was awed and shamed by what in any other context would have been an annoying level of perfection, and then Nathaniel's hand cupped the back of his head.

Greg hurried to raise his hands as the shining-slick head of Nathaniel's cock drew toward his face, holding his hips at bay just long enough to line things up and summon what fleeting memory he had of the last time he had done this— _he and Josh had been, what, 17?_ —before his mouth was filled with thick and hot and fleshy, dewy-clean and smooth, a hint of musk. He sputtered, sinuses flaring for panicked breath, and then it withdrew; he inhaled deeply, and then the hand on the back of his head was pulling him forward, impaling him back onto Nathaniel's erection, leaving him no choice but to open his throat and fight his gag reflex as best he could. 

Greg's eyes fluttered open and shut, not quite processing glimpses of Nathaniel's well-muscled hips, the close-cropped dark hairs trailing up Nathaniel's abdomen, the faded white gym towel in a heap around Nathaniel's flip-flopped feet. Nathaniel kept a firm hand on the back of Greg's skull, pushing his cock inexorably, again and again, past the far edge of Greg's hard palate, where everything felt thin and shaky and like bile was never too far off.

"Useless sack of shit." The words floated down on Nathaniel's breath, mixed arousal and vitriol that was music to Greg's ears. "Trash. Good for nothing. Barely good for this." Nathaniel pushed deeper to drive home the insult, ignoring Greg's subvocal complaints, and slumped forward over him to press his free hand to the wall for support. Through his own haze of arousal and unleashed coldness, he saw Greg beneath him, the top of his head bobbing back and forth as Nathaniel drove into him, drove Greg onto himself. He noticed with detachment the firm muscles of Greg's calves, tense as his weight shifted. 

He heard Greg's hand moving before he saw it: the slide of mesh fabric, tug of an elastic waistband, and then the distinct fleshy sound that meant Greg was jerking himself off—while he was sucking Nathaniel's dick, while insults continued to bubble up his throat and out of his mouth—Greg was taking Nathaniel's hatred for him and consuming it somehow, metabolizing it into— _this_ : the relaxed vulnerability of a man with nothing left to lose, a way of gaining by giving up. It was weirdly beautiful, and for just a moment Nathaniel's hatred flared in true with the jealousy of lesser stars. He thrust his hips more roughly, fingers digging into Greg's skull. Greg moaned desperately around him, audibly gagging and not slowing down, even as it brought tears to his eyes, his hand working fast between his own legs.

"Fucking piece of _shit_ ," Nathaniel hissed through gritted teeth as he came, holding Greg tight in place. The impossible, fumbling heat of Greg's mouth, sucking eagerly despite trembling lips, whipped through Nathaniel like the Santa Anas, tearing a ragged sound from his throat and pulling each of his muscles tense before loosing them to the winds. He could feel the rolling motion of Greg's throat as he struggled to swallow Nathaniel's load. He clenched his jaw, eyes rolling back as he rode it out, still holding Greg nose-to-groin.

After a moment, Nathaniel shuddered and straightened himself, releasing Greg's head. Greg sputtered as Nathaniel pulled out of him, some cum that he hadn't managed to swallow dribbling from his lips. He gasped for air, his eyes, frightened and hyperalive, catching Nathaniel's as he glanced down at him. Intelligence beyond the carnal was returning to Nathaniel, and as his eyes met Greg's, the weight of his gaze proved too much in exactly the right way. Greg moaned pathetically as he came, craning his neck, his gaze utterly held by Nathaniel's. His own spunk arced limply to spatter over Nathaniel's shin, where it clung and oozed down his ankle.

Nathaniel stepped back to give Greg some space, then as an afterthought, plucked his towel from the ground and re-wrapped it around his perfect hips. Finally, Greg's gaze fell toward the floor, and his ragged breathing slowed and evened. He tucked his softening cock back into his shorts, and pulled his t-shirt back on with clumsy motions. Nathaniel, coming down from the high of control, expected Greg to snap back to awareness and bolt any second. 

Greg's drooping head rose slowly, and Nathaniel watched as it lingered near his feet before skimming up to his face. Greg tilted his head, unreadable. Then he shuffled forward, still on his knees, and leaned down even further than before. Nathaniel felt something wet and unexpected, and a full-body tingle rushed through him as he realized that Greg was licking his own cum off his leg.

"Shit," Nathaniel murmured. The warm, slightly slimy sensation of Greg's tongue, licking from the jut of his ankle bone to halfway up his shin, made the towel around Nathaniel's waist feel tighter. His feeling of being in a lucid dream intensified. "You really do belong in the gutter."

Greg hummed affirmatively against the long bone of Nathaniel's shin, but before any thoughts of a second round could coalesce, they were interrupted by a sound from further outside the showers. It was the sound of a person clearing their throat—a familiar person—Nathaniel and Greg both blanched as their heads snapped toward White Josh, standing between them and the locker room exit, one hand resting on a wheeled yellow mop-bucket. How had they not heard him wheel that in?

"Well! Are you guys good for now, or do you want me to leave and come back?" WiJo's eyebrows threatened to disappear into his hairline. "I should warn you, we close in like ten minutes, so if you're gonna go again you better make it quick—"

Greg rocketed to his feet, feeling entirely naked even though he was—thank god—fully dressed. A locker clanged as he retrieved a floppy gym bag. He paused, mere paces from WiJo, and his face darkened. "We are never, _ever_ going to talk about this. You hear me?"

"Loud and clear, captain." WiJo saluted as Greg blew past him and out of the locker room, abandoning the half-full sport drink he had left on one of the benches. When Greg's retreating footsteps faded, WiJo turned back to Nathaniel. "We're gonna talk about this, though, right?"

Nathaniel was beet red, but he was prepared to negotiate. "Can I get dressed first?"

"Oh yeah, yeah, sorry." WiJo turned his back to Nathaniel and clasped his hands politely behind it. He grinned at the hurried sounds of Nathaniel throwing on clean clothes. "We're definitely gonna talk about this."

Nathaniel slung his bag over a stiff shoulder and walked briskly past WiJo and out the door.

WiJo sighed, pulled up his mop bucket, and turned to survey the damage in the shower entryway. Only then did he notice Nathaniel's abandoned swim trunks on the floor of one of the stalls.


End file.
